EMBRADO and TORREGIANI v.

COURT OF APPEALS
June 27, 1994 (233 SCRA 335)

FACTS:
Lucia Embrado, who was already married to petitioner Oreste Torregiani, bought LOT NO. 564
in her name alone. The document provided that even though the deed was prepared and signed
on 2 July 1946, the effects of the document would retroact to the 15th day of April 1941, the
date the lot and its improvements were actually sold to Lucia C. Embrado. Embrado sold the lot
described as her own paraphernal property tp her adopted daughter, Eda Jimenez. Eda sold the
lot to tohers. Torregianis instituted in the Court of First Instance, now Regional Trial Court, of
Zamboanga del Norte an action for declaration of nullity of contract, annulment of sales,
reconveyance and damages alleging that he did not consent to the sale, which consent was
necessary because Lot 564 was conjugal property.

ISSUE: WON the property is exclusive of Embrado or conjugal property.
HELD:
The court agrees with respondent court that Lot 564 was originally the paraphernal property of
Lucia, we cannot adopt its conclusion that because Lucia and the original owners agreed in
1941 for its purchase and sale, ownership was already acquired by Lucia at that moment. Under
Art. 1496 of the Civil Code, ownership of the thing sold is acquired by the vendee from the
moment it is delivered to him in any of the ways specified in articles 1497 to 1501, or in any
other manner signifying an agreement that the possession is transferred from the vendor to the
vendee, and under Art. 1498, (w)hen the sale is made through a public instrument, the
execution thereof shall be equivalent to the delivery of the thing which is the object of the
contract, if from the deed the contrary does not appear or cannot clearly be inferred.
In the case at bar, the Venta Definitiva over Lot 564 in favor of Lucia Embrado was executed by
the Carpitanoses on 2 July 1946 when her marriage to petitioner Oreste Torregiani was already
subsisting. Although ownership was acquired during the marriage and hence presumed
conjugal, the presumption of conjugality was successfully overcome by the terms of the Venta
Definitiva which contains a positive assertion of exclusive ownership, which was duly supported
by the testimony of Matias Carpitanos, one of the original sellers of the lot.\
However, it is a fact that there is a construction in 1958 of a residential/commercial building on
said lot a part of which was leased to third persons and another part serving as the conjugal
dwelling. Although there is no evidence on the source of funds used, it is presumed to be
conjugal funds.
The second paragraph of Art. 158 of the Civil Code provides that [b]uildings constructed, at the
expense of the partnership, during the marriage on land belonging to one of the spouses, also
pertain to the partnership, but the value of the land shall be reimbursed to the spouse who owns
the same. Under this article, the land becomes conjugal upon the construction of the building
without awaiting reimbursement before or at the liquidation of the partnership upon the
concurrence of two conditions, to wit: (a) the construction of the building at the expense of the
partnership; and, (b) the ownership of the land by one of the spouses. The conditions have been
fully met in the case at bench. Thus, even if Lot 564 was originally the paraphernal property of
Lucia as evident from the Venta Definitiva, the same became conjugal upon the construction
of the residential/commercial building in 1958.